Sunday, August 16, 2015

For those of that do not know what Rachel's Challenge is, Rachel Scott was the first victim of the Columbine tragedy in 1999. She was someone who always saw the good in everyone. She went out of her way to be kind. There are so many things that her family found after her death, like her hand print and journal that lead to this amazing program. Please visit the website and learn more about it.

My students have really embraced Rachel's Challenge. They are such a kind class. When we see an act of kindness we write it on a chain. Our goal was to have our chains reach around the entire classroom. I promised the students a pizza party and cookie and milk when they reached this goal. This month we got to celebrate our kindness.

We also celebrated our spring break about learning about hashtags #springbreak #spring

Friday, August 14, 2015

Collaborative Learning

I assigned learning teams and leaders for the groups. The first thing was to discuss roles of the group and make plans on who would be responsible. This was a student directed activity. I observed the groups but did not interfere with this process. After our groups were done we discuss things that worked well and things that needed to change. The students discussed any problems that they may have had.

The next steps was to start our research. I taught the students how to search. A great tip is to put "for kids" after your search. This gave the students kid friendly information about their animal. It took a couple of weeks to finish or research. We utilize our i Pads and Computer Lab.

Then the students put their books together.

Then the student presented their All About books to the class.

To wrap up our project the students filled out a rubric on their group performance.

My students did a wonderful job. They got along so well. They helped each other. It brought our already close class together even more.

I got this amazing unit on teachers pay teachers Click here if you would like this unit.